When Vraštil brought down Ghali with a sharp tackle in the second minute of the first half with the score 1:1, referee Michal Křepský did not hesitate and immediately drew the red card. Soon it was not far from the melee between the two camps.
“I saw that one Olomouc player kicked the ball at our player who was lying on the ground. So I ran after him and someone grabbed me from behind and started strangling me. I don’t even know who it was. I asked the referee if it was normal. He told me that they are not responsible for this, so I don’t know…,” surprised Lubomír Tupta, the author of the home team’s first goal.
Both Křepský’s assistants calmed down the situation on the pitch. Video referee Dominik Starý subsequently intervened in the game, calling the main referee to the screen to review the intervention. Křepský then corrected his verdict. Vrastila instead of red punished only with admonition. “I didn’t see the intervention, I was turned around, so I don’t want to discuss it too much. But if he pulls out a red card…,” only Tupta stated.
“It’s quite sensitive these days thanks to VAR. Every slip is taken as a dangerous game. I saw that Vrašťa took the first ball in the chute, but he made it through inertia. Vrašťa described it as hitting him with the shin. I trusted him with the fact that it wouldn’t be a red card,” explained Sigma captain Vít Beneš.
Home coach Luboš Kozl was particularly annoyed by the intervention of VAR. “It is explained to us that VAR should only enter situations when there is an obvious foul. I saw the intervention, he didn’t hit him with the sole, more like a shin, but with such intensity that the referee decided to give a red card. So I don’t know why VAR got involved,” explained Slovan’s coach Luboš Kozel.
“We had an exchange of views and he was convinced that it was a 100 percent red card. Of course, at a distance of thirty meters, I did not see in detail how he hit the opponent. But from my point of view there was initially no intention, in my opinion Vrštil played the ball first and only then did contact occur. I didn’t even see him hit him with the sole. Luboš said it was shaving, but the intensity was huge,” said the visiting coach Václav Jílek, who recalled the match a week ago. “When I saw the non-exclusion of Prekop and Lischka in the last round, nothing against them, I’m just saying that because of the nature of the intervention, I think that it fits into the context of assessing situations,” concluded Jílek.
